In today's digital age, companies selling goods and services to consumers must engage in on-line marketing and sales over the Internet to be competitive. For example, many large department stores that traditionally have brick and mortar stores also have sophisticated web sites providing detailed product information and the ability for visitors to purchase products on-line. Furthermore, many companies have large marketing budgets directed to on-line marketing, including marketing on their web sites.
One of the key challenges facing these companies is how to evaluate their online marketing efforts. On-line activity, such as web site traffic and online sales may be used as a measure of online marketing efforts. However, on-line marketing may impact in-store sales as well as online sales. For example, a consumer may view product information on-line and then go to the brick and mortar store to see the product and ultimately purchase the product at the store. It is very difficult to track the impact of on-line marketing when purchases are made in this manner. To optimize marketing efforts and justify spending for on-line marketing, companies need to have the ability to accurately capture the impact of their on-line marketing efforts on offline sales.
To date, there is no structure in place that allows for formulating strategies around product offerings based on online activity and overall company key performance indicators (KPIs). Website owners typically operate within information silos and make isolated decisions around product and promotional offerings. As a result, promotional and product information content displayed on a website may be disconnected to the visitor's universe as often these products are either out of stock or promotions not available in the visitors geographic area. Eventually this causes an unfavorable consumer experience, and thus, there is a constant struggle by website owners to manage the relationship between visits to their website and offline outcomes.